The diversity of sensors in the skin is impressive--it's not all sensed by a generic nerve. There are specialized mechanisms for vibration, heat, pressure and even pain. Here's a great summary with diagrams:

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/receptor.html

I really hope the surgeon said "I am your father!" after the procedure. :)

Nooooooooooo!

We're going to spend a century trying to hack our bodies until we realize we can just abandon them and stop worrying all the time.

I hope it doesn't take a century, really.

I'm personally excited to be able to hold my breath underwater for 3 hours: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respirocyte.

I believe we've had technology similar to this for a long time, is there anything new with this in particular?

I believe the biggest problem is the formation of scar tissue around the implanted electrodes. This reduces the strength of the electrical signals over time, and eventually the electrodes need to be adjusted.

There have been prosthetic arms that can be controlled by thought alone for a while. I think the new part is getting real-time feedback from the arms back to the brain.

EPFL is cool... one day I will move there too :)